Presently, it is required to make a user contract with an international communication company in advance in order to make overseas telephone calls from a mobile communication terminal such as a portable telephone and PHS. That is, the user is required to submit a predetermined application sheet to the international communication company by writing own name, address, where to make contact, a payment method and others.
At this time, while persons having credit cards can select “Pay by Credit” as the payment method, persons who do not have such cards cannot but select “Pay by Bill” which requires a deposit after being examined by visiting the international communication company or by a letter, thus taking time until obtaining an approval.
There is also a method of utilizing a prepaid card for international calls. It enables the user to make an overseas call within the count of the card by inputting a card number recorded in the prepaid card from the portable telephone before dialing a called telephone number.
By the way, a plurality of international communication companies are now widely competing each other by arming with uniqueness of contents of services and their telephone charges are not uniform, thus causing large differences in the charges depending on time zones and countries (regions) to which calls are made. Therefore, persons who frequently make overseas calls naturally want to properly use the communication company whose telephone charge is the lowest depending on the time zone and the countries (regions) to which the call is made.
However, it requires the user to make user contracts with the plurality of communication companies in advance, taking much time. It is especially trouble some to pay a deposit to each communication company for persons who cannot have credit cards.
Although the use of the prepaid card allows the user to be released from the complicatedness of making the contract or paying the deposit in advance, there remains a problem that the user must buy a plurality of kinds of prepaid cards in advance to use the communication companies properly.
Further, while the user is required to input the number of own card recorded therein as described above in case of the prepaid card before inputting a country number, an area code number, a local office number and a subscriber's number of the called side terminal, it has been inconvenient because a number of digits of the card number is relatively large (e.g., “31-723-7381-5419-#) and the input has to be made from the beginning when an erroneous input is made even at one number on the way of the input. In particular, when the user uses many prepaid cards in succession in order to make a relatively long speech, the user is obliged to conduct cumbersome works of inputting the number of each prepaid card continuously.
While those described above are the points inconvenient for the users of international calls, there have been also inconvenient points for the company issuing the prepaid cards that it naturally costs to create the cards and to transport and to stock such cards having a value as a note.
While those described above are the cases when persons having been already using the mobile communication terminals make an international call from their own mobile communication terminal, they had to select one company from a plurality of mobile communication companies and to make a subscriber's contract with a mobile communication company in order to start to use the mobile communication terminal.
They had to write own name, address, a method of payment and others to a predetermined subscriber application sheet and to stamp thereon in making such contract. At this time, the user is obliged to show an identification such as a driver license and a health insurance card. The user also had to wait for several hours until the result of examination whether or not the subscription is permitted is issued.
Therefore, there has been a request centering on the age of young people that they want to use the mobile communication terminals more simply.
Still more, it has been inconvenient for foreigners who temporarily stay in Japan for the purpose of business and sight-seeing for example that they cannot use the mobile communication terminals because they don't have an address in Japan.
In order to deal with such a problem, there has been a method of renting the mobile communication terminals to persons who want to use them temporarily. That is, a rental company who have bought a plurality of mobile communication terminals from the mobile communication company and made the subscriber's contracts rents the mobile communication terminals to the foreigners and others who want to use them temporarily.
Because the direct subscriber is the rental company in this case, the persons who do not have an address in Japan can use the mobile communication terminal.
Further, because the rental company takes the responsibility of the direct payment of the basic fee and rental fee, there is no demerit for the mobile communication company even if the actual user is a person who has no credit in Japan.
However, there is always a risk for the rental company that the user runs away with the mobile communication terminal without paying the high rental fee. It has been then necessary to ask to submit a large amount of deposit in advance in order to reduce this risk while hampering the convenience of good users.
Further, even if a certain amount of deposit has been assured, it is unable to eliminate the risk of causing a bad debt completely because there is no means for suppressing the rental fee exceeding that amount.
Still more, while mail-orders utilizing telephones and personal computer communications (including Internet communications) are now being actively conducted, no safe charge payment method has been established yet. Normally, the charge is paid by transferring to the bank account of the mail-order company after the arrival of merchandise or by paying to the delivery company in exchange of the merchandise when it is delivered (so called ‘substitutional payment’).
However, in case of the transfer method, the mail-order company always has a risk of bad debt. The person who bought the merchandise is also required to transfer the charge by visiting a banking organ and has to bear the transfer fee.
Although no bad debt occurs for the mail-order company in case of the substitutional payment, there is a problem that the person who bought the merchandise has to bear the relatively expensive substitutional payment fee.
The present invention has been devised in order to solve the above-mentioned problems and its first object is to establish a telephone charge payment method which causes no risk of causing a bad debt of telephone charge. If the bad debt can be totally eliminated as described above, it becomes possible to make an international call from the mobile communication terminal immediately with a simple procedure without making a utility contract which requires the preliminary examination and the deposit with the international communication company in advance or without buying a prepaid card. It is also possible to properly use a plurality of international communication companies.
A second object of the invention is to establish a technology which enables any one to use mobile communication terminals with a simple procedure.
A third object of the invention is to establish a safe and simple charge payment method in the mail-order via telephone lines.